Where Love Has Gone (1962)
Page 28
“Uncle Sam, that’s Mr. Corwin, was very nice. Mother married him after she divorced my father. I think he felt kind of sorry for me. He used to take me out like my father used to. To the parks and the zoo. Once he even took me sailing. But he wasn’t like Daddy. When I was with Daddy it was like he never thought about anything else but me. With Uncle Sam, it was different. He tried very hard, but I was only one of the many things he thought about. But I liked him just the same. And then one day, he was gone. I remember that day.”
Dani fell silent, looking down at the smoldering cigarette between her fingers.
“Go on, Dani,” the psychologist urged. “You remember that day. What happened to make you remember it?”
The blue-and-white station wagon with the words Miss Randolph’s School lettered delicately on the door pulled into the driveway and stopped. The driver, in a smart gray uniform, got out and opened the door. Dani came flying out of the car, her long black hair streaming behind her, her white blouse and navy-blue pleated skirt bright in the sunlight. She ran up the steps to the front door.
“Have a nice weekend, Miss Dani,” the driver called after her.
She flashed a bright smile back at him from the door. “You too, Axel.”
She dropped her books on the table in the foyer end, holding her report card in her hand, dashed around the circular staircase and down the corridor to the studio.
She flung the door open and ran inside calling, “Mother! Mother! I got an A in Art!”
She’d run all the way into the studio, the card still held high in her hand, before she realized that no one was there. She went over to the small room that was just off the studio.
The door was closed. She knocked at it lightly. “Mother. Mother, are you in there?”
There was no answer.
Carefully she opened the door and peeked inside. The room was empty. Slowly she closed the door. She was puzzled. Usually her mother was working at that time of day.
She went back to the foyer. She picked up her books from the table and started up the stairs. Charles was just coming out of Uncle Sam’s room. “Good afternoon, Miss Dani.”
She looked up at him. “Where’s Mother?”
The butler looked uncomfortable. “She went out, Miss Dani.”
“Did she say when she’d be back?” Dani held up the report card. “I got an A in Art. I want her to see it.”
“Isn’t that wonderful, Miss Dani.” Then the butler’s tone changed. “Madam didn’t say when she’d return.”
“Oh,” Dani said in a disappointed voice. She started toward her room, then stopped and looked back. “Let me know when she comes in, Charles. I want her to see it.”
“Of course, Miss Dani.”
Mrs. Holman was hanging some dresses in the closet when Dani came into her room. A big smile came over her face as she saw the child. “So there you are. I was wondering when you’d come home. Did you get it?”
Dani grinned. “What do you think?”
“Let me see,” the old governess said. “I can’t wait!”
Mischievously Dani held the report card behind her. “I won’t let you see it, Nanny, until you keep your promise!”
“I have the cake already baked.”
“All right, then!” Dani held the card out to her.
“I’ve got to get my glasses,” Mrs. Holman said. “I’m so excited I can’t read!”
She found them in a pocket of her uniform and put them on. Quickly she looked down at the card. “Oh, Dani,” she exclaimed, “An A in Art!”
The governess pulled Dani to her. “I’m so proud of you,” she said warmly. She kissed Dani on the cheek. “Your mother will be proud too when she sees it.”
“Where is Mother? She wasn’t in the studio.”
The same look she had seen in Charles’s eyes came over the governess’ face. “Your mother had to go away suddenly on a business trip. She’ll be back Monday.”
“Oh.” Her mother had taken quite a few of these unexpected weekend business trips lately. She took the report card back from the governess. “I hope she’s back in time to sign my report card. I have to return it on Monday.”
“I’m sure she’ll be back in time. Now, why don’t we go down to the kitchen and ask Cookie to put out the milk and the cake? We’ll have a little party, just the three of us.”
Dani looked at the old woman. She was tired of having parties with her. It would be nice if Mother came to one of her parties for a change. “I don’t feel like a party.”
“You do what Nanny tells you,” the governess said with halfhearted sternness. She knew what Dani was thinking.
“Okay.” Dani turned and went out the door. She met Uncle Sam and Charles in the hallway. Each was carrying several suitcases.
“Uncle Sam!” Dani shouted, running to him.
He turned to wait for her. Charles went on down the stairs with the luggage. “Yes, Dani?”
“I got an A in Art!”
“That’s great, Dani.”
There was something in Uncle Sam’s voice that made her look up into his face. He looked tired and she felt in him a kind of sadness. She glanced at the bags. “Are you going away for the weekend too? Are you going to meet Mother?”
“I’m going away, Dani. But I won’t be meeting your mother.”
“Oh! I thought if you saw her you could tell her.”
He seemed to be thinking of something else. “Tell her what?”
“That I got an A in Art.”
“I won’t be seeing her, Dani.”
“Will you be back on Monday?”
He looked down at her silently for a moment, then put the luggage down. “No, Dani, I won’t be back on Monday. I won’t be back at all.”
“Not ever?” she asked in a puzzled voice.
“No. I’m moving out.”
The tears rushed to her eyes suddenly. It was just like Daddy. One day he moved out and after a while he stopped coming to see her. “Why? Don’t you like us anymore?”
He saw the tears in her eyes and heard the concern in her voice. He took her hand. “That’s not it, Dani. It isn’t you. But sometimes things don’t work out the way they should. Your mother and I are getting a divorce.”
“Like Mother and Daddy?”
He nodded.
“That means you won’t come to see me anymore?” She began to cry. “Now nobody will come to see me.”
He put his arm around her awkwardly. “I’d like to come to see you, Dani. But I can’t.”
“Why not?” she asked. “Susie Colter’s mother was divorced five times and all her fathers come to see her. I know because she sits next to me in class and she always shows me the presents they bring her.”
“Your mother wouldn’t like it.”
“Why can’t she move out when she gets a divorce?” Dani demanded, beginning to get angry. “Why does the daddy always have to move out?”
“I don’t know.”
Impulsively she threw her arms around him. “Don’t go, Uncle Sam! I’ll miss you something awful!”
He smiled and put his cheek alongside hers. “I’ll miss you too, Dani. You be a big girl and let me go and I’ll send you a present every now and then. You can show it to your friend so she’ll know she’s not the only one whose Daddy gives her presents.”
“All right,” Dani said hesitantly. She kissed his cheek. “But I’ll miss you anyway.”
Sam kissed her again and straightened up. He picked up his bags. “I’ll have to hurry.”
She followed him down the stairs. “Are you going to La Jolla and live on a boat like my daddy?”
He laughed. “No, Dani. I’m going to live in New York for awhile.”
Her voice was disappointed. “If you lived on a boat we could go sailing.”
He laughed again. “I’m not as good a sailor as your daddy.”
Dani followed him to the door and watched Charles put the bags into the taxi. Uncle Sam bent down and kissed her again. “Goodbye, Dani.”
She waved to him as the cab began to move. “Goodbye, Uncle Sam!” she called, and then because she didn’t know what else to day, “Have a good time!”
She walked thoughtfully through the house to the kitchen. Charles, Cookie and Nanny were waiting for her. All of them except Violet, who was her mother’s maid. Violet was never around when her mother went away.
“Mother and Uncle Sam are getting a divorce,” she announced. “Uncle Sam’s going to live in New York.”
Mrs. Holman brought out the chocolate layer cake and put it on the table. “How do you like that for a cake?”
Dani looked at it. “It’s wonderful.” But there was no enthusiasm in her voice.
“You sit down at the table and I’ll cut you a piece,” Cookie said.
Obediently, Dani sat down. Cookie cut a big wedge and put it on her plate, next to a glass of milk. Then she cut pieces for the others and they all sat down. Dani knew they were waiting for her to taste is so they could start. She cut a piece with her fork and put it in her mouth. “This cake is delicious,” she mumbled.
“Not with your mouth full, Dani.”
They all began to eat. “The cake is very good, Mrs. Holman,” Charles said.
“Take it easy, now,” Cookie warned him, laughing.
“Of course your cakes are very good too, Cookie,” Charles said, aware the good cooks weren’t that easy to come by these days.
“Why are they getting divorced?” Dani asked suddenly.
The servants exchanged awkward glances. It was the governess who answered. “We don’t know, child. It’s not our place to know.”
“Is it because Mother is so pretty and has too many friends?”
They didn’t answer.
“I heard Uncle Sam and Mother quarreling a few days ago. Uncle Sam said he was sick and tired of her sleeping partners. I know that Uncle Sam and Mrs. Scaasi were partners but I didn’t know that Mother had partners too. Why didn’t I know that?”
“That’s none of our business, child,” Mrs. Holman said sternly. “And none of your either. You just eat your cake and worry about the things that concern you.”
Dani ate silently for a few minutes more, then looked up. “Uncle Sam said he would send me presents so I could show Susie Colter she isn’t the only one who gets presents from her daddies.”
Two weeks later she was ten years old and a big crate came for her from New York. It was filled with presents. Uncle Sam had kept his word. She felt a little better then. But in her own way she missed him.
When school closed her mother took her to a dude ranch near Lake Tahoe for the summer. Mother said she had to do it to get her divorce, but Dani didn’t mind. It was a lot of fun. She went horseback riding every morning and she was on the lake every afternoon. Rick was there too. He was her mother’s new manager. He must have been one of the partners she’d heard Uncle Sam and Mother quarreling about, because once in a while she’d see him coming from her mother’s room in the morning.
But she liked Rick. He enjoyed doing the same things she did. He’d go horseback riding with her and he taught her to water ski. And he used to laugh a lot. Not like Uncle Sam, who never laughed very much at all. Mother used to say that Rick seemed as much of a kid as she was.
Mother didn’t like to ride horseback or spend a lot of time on the water. She said it was bad for her skin, she got sunburnt too easily. Instead, she spent most of her time in the room she had fixed up as a studio. At night she’d get up and she and Rick would go into to Reno. Then Mother would sleep late. But Rick was up early every morning for their ride together. He used to call her Little Swinger.
He had a mustache at the time. A grim line, a little wider than a pencil stroke, that reached to the corners of his wide mouth. She thought it made him look cute. Something like Clark Gable. One day she told her mother that and for some reason her mother got angry. She told Rick to shave the silly thing off.
Dani began to cry. She didn’t know why she was crying. “Don’t shave it off!” she begged. “Please don’t!”
“Stop acting like a silly little fool!” her mother shouted.
Dani turned on her mother angrily. “You only want him to shave it off because I said I liked it! You don’t want anybody to like me or me to like anybody!” She turned to Rick. “Tell her you won’t shave it off!”
Rick looked at her, then at her mother. He hesitated.
Her mother smiled then. It was a funny sort of smile, the kind that came over her face when she made you do something you didn’t really want to do. “You’re free, white and over twenty-one, Rick. Make up your own mind what you want to do.”
Rick stood there for a moment, then turned and went to his room. When he came out a few minutes later the mustache was gone.
Dani stared at him. He looked different somehow. There was a funny white line where the mustache had been. He didn’t look like Clark Gable anymore. She burst into tears and ran to her room.
After that Rick didn’t go riding with her anymore. Neither did he take her out in the speedboat to water ski. But it really didn’t matter very much because their vacation was almost over. Her mother sent her off to a camp for the rest of the summer.
14
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Nora looked up from her work in answer to the soft knock at the studio door. “Come in.”
The door opened slightly and Mrs. Holman stood hesitantly in the doorway. “May I have a word with madam?” she asked formally.
Nora nodded. “Of course.” She put down the lump of clay and rubbed her hands clean.
The governess came in awkwardly. It was one of the few times she had ever entered the studio. “I’d like to talk to you about Danielle.”
She glanced at Rick who was standing nearby.
“What about her?” Nora said.
Mrs. Holman looked at Rick again. She hesitated. Rick took the hint. “I’ll leave you two alone.” He went into the other room leaving the door open.
“Well?” Nora asked.
The old woman was still awkward. “Danielle is growing up.”
“Of course,” Nora said. “We all know that.”
“She’s not so much a baby anymore. She’s quickly becoming a young lady.”
Nora looked at her silently.
“What I mean,” the governess continued, embarrassment in her voice, “it’s not easy to explain things.”
“What things?” Nora asked in an annoyed voice. “I’m sure she doesn’t have to have the facts of life explained to her. They do that very efficiently at Miss Randolph’s School.”
“That’s it!” Mrs. Holman said excitedly. “She knows.”
Nora shook her head. “Of course she does. She should know.”
“She knows,” the old lady said. “And she sees.”
Nora was silent for a moment. “Exactly what are you getting at, Mrs. Holman?”
The governess didn’t look at her. “Danielle sees what is happening in this house. And she knows what she knows. Together it is not good for a girl to see such things in her own home.”
“Are you telling me what to do in my own house?”
The governess shook her head quickly. “No, Miss Hayden. I’m just telling you about your daughter. These things she sees and these things she knows, they are too much for a child like her to understand. She thinks all the wrong things about them.” Her eyes met Nora’s candidly. “It is no longer possible for me to explain to her that she does not really see what she does see.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern, Mrs. Holman,” Nora said coldly.
The old woman’s face grew stubborn. “In a way it’s not, Miss Hayden. But I have been Dani’s nanny since she was born. I would not feel right if I did not tell you how this is affecting Dani.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Holman,” Nora said, still in that cold voice. “But please remember that I have been Danielle’s mother since she was born. She is my responsibility, not yours.”
“Did you hear what she said?” Nora said.
Rick looked at her. “That old lady’s got to go.”
“She’s right, in a way. Dani is growing up.” Nora picked up a piece of clay. “We’ll have to be more careful.”
“Careful?” Rick exploded. “How careful can we be? You just try sneaking out of this house in the small hours of the morning and back to that apartment over the garage. I bet half the neighborhood knows what I’m doing!”
Nora laughed. “You could try making a little less noise when you close the doors.”
“You try it! Especially when it’s raining and everything sticks. I get half drowned.”
Nora put down the clay. “Yes, we’ll have to do something about that.”
“We could get married,” Rick said. “That would put an end to all this jazz.”
“No.” Nora looked at him frankly. “We’re not meant for marriage. I’ve tried it twice and I know. And at heart you’re no more for it than I am.”
He walked over and put his arms around her. “But we haven’t tried it with each other, baby. It would be different then.”
She pushed him away. “Stop kidding yourself. Neither of us is the type to be tied down. We’re alike. We both like something new once in awhile.”
“Not me, baby. I could be very happy with just you.”
She avoided his grasp. “And how would you explain to your friends when you couldn’t get out Tuesday and Thursday nights? Especially to your little Italian girl, the night-club photographer, who makes spaghetti for you on her night off? What would you tell her after she’s been waiting all this time for you to marry her?”
He stared at her, his face flushed. “You know about her?”
Nora smiled. “I know everything about you. I’m not that much a fool.” She shrugged her shoulders and picked up a cigarette. She waited for him to light it before she continued. “But I don’t mind, really. You can do what you want so long as I get what I want.”
He started to smile slowly. “And I got what you want. Is that right, baby?”